


A symphony of suffering

by WanderingKnight



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Lots of Crying, No Dialogue, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, These poor boys deserve better, Vehicons are suffering, and deaths, babys first traumatic experience, descriptions of injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:21:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingKnight/pseuds/WanderingKnight
Summary: The vehicons play a key part in the function of the decepticon cause, they help repair things, mine the energon necessary to keep everything functioning, fight the autobots and are used as punching bags by their superior officers. Life as a vehicon was never fun and it most likely never will be.The story of a new vehicon soldier learing and adjusting to their new life with the decepticons aboard the Nemesis.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	1. The Harshness of Reality

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not a very experienced writer and this is my first time ever attempting to write a fan fiction, so sorry of it seems a bit amateurish. If tags are a bit inaccurate I can change them and I just did a re-read of chapters to spell check and such so if you see any mistakes feel free to tell me and I’ll correct them.

They see light, so bright and warm. It’s their first time being outside and they love it, the feeling of warmth on their frame and the gentle breeze over their plating is new and wonderful, they never want this to end. But of course, as with all good things, they must come to an end eventually. Life continues on and no body will wait for them, they must leave and follow their fellow troopers to their new life that awaits them. 

-<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>-

They are sorted into small groups of around 6 vehicons each, 5 standard drones and 1 leader, the leaders said that these are their new squadrons and that they will be an important factor in their new lives from now on. 

His new squad mates, friends and comrades are waiting for him, they are going some where important they say, you like new things you think, being out under the sun for the first time was wonderful, what could be so different this time?

-<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>-

It was very different, dark winding hallways that seemed to go on forever with lots more vehicons to meet. There were also some different looking mechs, they didn’t look like you or your fellow drones, some we short, some were tall, some with wings and some with wheels, they had different colours than you too. You wondered why this was.

They reminded you of your creator, you didn’t like to think about him much, or about how he treated you like objects and not sentient beings, he was mean but your squad leader said that we could not disobey him or something bad would happen to us. Nobody knew what that “bad thing” was but sometimes when others stepped out of line they disappeared, you wonder where they went sometimes, but were told not to question it.

You and your squad were walking down these dark halls for what seemed like forever before you had been led into a large room, it was spacious yet cramped. Berths lined the walls and other vehicons wandered around and out the room. These are your new barracks they said, they seemed happy to see you, you liked that, you enjoyed making others happy and being in the presence of others like you. Little did you know at the time was that they were hiding their fear over what would come of you soon.

-<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>-

It was time for your first assignment! You and your squad were excited to help out the other mechs and work for the decepticon cause. You’d only learned about it recently but you were proud to be working towards such a noble cause like the decepticons!

Your job was to help the miners transport the mined energon to the engine room of the nemesis. Not a very exiting job but you need to start somewhere right? 

The more experienced drones were helping you out and teaching you what to do, you needed to learn fast because apparently a vehicon who couldn’t do their job right or fast enough was useless and got “deactivated”. You don’t know what that word means yet, all you know is that it isn’t a good thing.

There were lots of things you didn’t know yet but everything is a chance to learn they said, you’d learn what to do soon enough, right?

-<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>-

The caves aren’t a very fun place to be in your opinion, they were dark cold and wet, nothing like being outside in the sun, that was one of your new favourite things. This planets surface was beautiful and filled with new things to see and experience but down here you didn’t have access to any of that. The little organic creatures were your favourite, you weren’t allowed allowed to interact with the ones called “humans” but you secretly watched them from afar. They were rather funny looking and did weird things, like covering themselves with large sheets of organic material and driving non sentient vehicles. 

Some of your friends have named themselves after the humans but you decided to name yourself after a beautiful organic flora you found in a small bed of water outside the mine. One of your squad members had named themselves Cole after a human in some earth media they had been invited to watch the other night, he said they were called lotuses. It sounded a lot like your official designation, L0-2U33 so you decided that you’d be called Lotus from now on, it was a pretty name.

Apparently we weren’t allowed to have these names though so the older vehicons told me to never speak about them in front of an officer. Why weren’t we allowed names? The officers had them and so did the little organics, why were we so different?

-<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>-

A tough lesson had soon come in the form of four new mechs entering the mine through a ground bridge, you knew what that was! You didn’t have a chance to celebrate your own learning though as shots started being fired all over the place. 

You’d been taught lots about combat back in the lab you were created in but you didn’t know why. It seemed today was the day you’d put that skill to use, as your squad leader has said the four new mechs were your targets. Why did we have to shoot them I asked? The others said that they were evil and wanted to steal the energon we had mined, that was bad. The miners had worked so hard for it but still it wasn’t nice to shoot somebody, it hurt lots, you knew because you’d accidentally been shot by a drone now known now as Nick during practice once. 

Soon a drone next to you fell down with large hole in his chest, he was bleeding lots and you knew that bleeding was bad and you needed to stop it. You soon notice a lack of a spark in his exposed spark chamber, that was weird, you all had sparks in your chests, where did his go? You didn’t question it and tried to stop the bleeding as best you could by putting your servo over his exposed spark chamber. 

After what feel so quick yet so slow there was a large glowing puddle of energon surrounding you and numerous other vehicons had fallen over. The mysterious bots were gone now thanks to the effort of your comrades, you still didn’t know why they needed to be shot at, why couldn’t they have a peaceful chat?

A more experienced miner came over to you, maybe this one you were helping was his friend? He told you to stop trying to stop the bleeding, you said that you couldn’t stop until a medic helped him. His field was full of sadness and pity for some reason. He said that the miner was “dead”, what did that mean? Apparently his missing spark meant that he was no longer in this world with us anymore and that he had gone to a place called the well of all sparks. 

It saddened you to know he was gone, even if you didn’t know him. You looked around and noticed all the others, energon and metal fragments coating the cave walls and floor in a sea of carnage. Did that mean all these others had gone offline too? Gone to the well of all sparks together?

It made you sad to know that all these vehicons were gone, unable to experience life anymore. It made you angry to know that those four bots had done all this in a matter of minutes. It made you confused as to why this all had to happen in the first place. 

-<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>—<>-

Your return to the Nemesis made you see just as much carnage as there was at the mine. Your fellow soldiers bleeding over the dark floors leaving a glowing trail behind them as they went. The med bay filled with those unfortunate enough to have gained serious injury’s, a growing pile of corpses in the corner. 

You were told to return to your barracks and rest, you didn’t think you could after what you saw at the mines. The reality of the situation had settled in fairly quickly, all those vehicons were dead now, their corpses waiting to be smelted down and reused. All because of a silly war that should have ended thousands of years ago. You didn’t know you were in a war until now, the elder vehicons were unaware that you didn’t know and had tried to calmly explain everything to the new generation after the incident. 

Apparently they were nothing but mass produced drones made solely for the purpose of dying, It was horrible but the others had come to terms with it long ago.  
You weren’t allowed names because you were seen as non sentient, you weren’t allowed to have your own thoughts and individual identity. You were nothing but cannon fodder in the eyes of your superior officers.


	2. The Feeling of Helplessness

Lotus was on duty guarding another mine with their squadron, guarding the mine was definitely a step up from doing the duty’s of a miner. They wanted to get out on the frontlines though, they wanted to make the autobots pay for the deaths of his comrades. 

For now, they were stuck guarding the mine and hoping that the autobots would show their ugly mugs again. They had serious doubts about this though, almost everything of value in here has been mined away already. All that was left was small fragments that almost used up more energy to mine that they got out of the crystals themselves.

Nothing usually happened whilst on duty, maybe an organic would occasionally come by and you could watch it go about it’s business for a while but other than that it was just you, the dark cave walls and your own thoughts. 

Thinking never did you any favours, all it ever did was remind you of your insignificant existence. The thoughts you’d never be allowed to express lest you end up in the recycling were shoved off to the side harshly before you got too confident and decided to act on them. 

You feel something itching at your neck cables. It’s a small organic, a bat they call it. How funny, it thinks your neck is the cave wall and is clambering up it. Better remove it before it gets hurt or gets into something it shouldn’t. 

You gently coax it onto your digit before lifting it over to the wall and letting it climb away into the darkness to join its friends above. Maybe they have something fun going on up there?

————————————————————————————————————

A few earth hours later and nothing exciting has happened, you didn’t have your hopes up but a small part of you wished something had. 

A few miners passed by carting what little energon remains they had mined up. It’s all boring stuff really and you feel your processor slow down as you accidentally begin to recharge on the job. 

Then a rumble happens.

Earthquakes aren’t common in this area you think to yourself. Could the cave be structurally unstable? Mines like this one which had nearly been stripped clean are more often than not very dangerous and at constant risk of collapse. You’d heard horror stories of caves collapsing in before, trapping unfortunate mechs inside and slowly starving them to death or crushing them to death immediately. You strongly hoped that this wasn’t one of the unstable mines. 

Honestly, what idiot decided it was a good idea to mine in these places for small crystals of energon and risk loosing equipment and valuable mechs?

A few small rocks fall loose and bounce harmlessly off your helm, the noise and movement scaring away your small group of bat friends. Nobody was calling for an evacuation yet which meant that the rumble wasn’t anything to worry about probably. Most likely it was just the drilling up ahead getting closer to your current location. 

Back to standing guard and being bored stiff it is then. You hoped your little bat friends would return soon, they were fun to watch.

————————————————————————————————————

No less than hour later another rumble came, this one was louder and harder. You had to widen your stance to stop yourself from falling over helm first. 

More rocks fell from above, larger and heavier too. They didn’t hit harmlessly off your helm either, they leave small dents behind. Not deep enough to cause pain or issues but still annoying, you have to get someone to pop them out for you later. 

Suddenly the rumbling starts up again, not a short tremor either. This is harsh and constant now! You need to tell the others to get out ASAP! Screw your orders to stay put, your job now is to ensure the others get out in time. 

By the time you reached the main chamber large rocks were already raining down from over head onto the cave floor. Miners and guards alike ran and ducked for cover below large drills and carts trying to dodge the deadly rain of boulders and rocks. 

Before you could help the others escape in time a large rock fell onto your head, into your preexisting dents from earlier. You felt a sharp pain before everything became fuzzy and you felt nothing.

————————————————————————————————————

As you slowly came back online you felt a sharp pain in your helm, gently reaching up to it you could feel a sizeable dent in it. Owch, you’d need to have Knockout look at it later before it causes something serious.

Once your optics had onlined you became aware of the carnage surrounding you. The cave hadn’t collapsed fully but lots of boulders and debris had fallen from over head onto unfortunate drones and parts of the cave were completely sealed off with rock and metal.

You were one of the lucky ones, having fallen over under a large metal platform which had taken the hit from most of the rocks. Some others seemed to have made it out with only dents and scrapes but most weren’t as lucky as you.

Your comrades were desperate trying to lift away the rumble to save each other from their rocky tombs. You needed to help them before it’s too late!

You ran over to a miner who’s entire lower half had been crushed below a large chunk of metal that had fallen from overhead. If you didn’t get him out now it would be too late, he was already loosing copious amounts of energon from, his crushed struts. 

It was too heavy. You nearly popped a servo out of place in your attempts to remove it. The miner was using the last of his energy to tell you it’s too late. You couldn’t leave him, you wouldn’t leave him behind.

And then it was too late. His torso slipped to the ground slowly and he turned grey, nothing more than an unfortunate loss in the eyes of your officers now.

You scramble up right to try help the others. Another guard was right across from you, already grey and lifeless. The dent in their helm told you that they had been knocked out by the first boulders like you, that had not offlined them though. A large boulder had tumbled down the slop next to them, crushing their body as it went. Internals shot out their mouth like streamers in large puddle of energon, having been popped out like one of those human yoghurt tubes. The boulder itself having stopped just above their shoulders. A grizzly scene but only one of many like it. 

Another vehicon sat skewered on top of a large shard of metal that had come out of place during the tremors, they must have fallen from up above. Energon streamed down the shard in small currents, it was still pouring out too.

To the side a greyed out corpse sat helmless. No wait, it still had its helm, it was just a small sliver of crushed metal. Again energon was strewed everywhere, painting the rocks a vibrant glowing blue.

Others were merely pedes or servos sticking out of large piles of debris and rubble. The survivors had succeeded in digging some out only to have them die shortly after from energon loss.

It was a tragedy. Dozens of your comrades crushed all because of your superiors greed, but all they would care about was the energon and equipment lost in it all. After all, you were replaceable right? Your deaths didn’t matter and never would, they’d get a new batch made from the remains of the last soon enough.

You felt useless. You hadn’t warned anybody about the first tremor, if you had perhaps they could have gotten out in time. You also failed to save even one mech from the rubble.

You felt helpless, you couldn’t save them. Your useless frame not made strong enough to lift the rubble from their slowly graying forms.

————————————————————————————————————

Once back aboard the Nemesis you went back to your barracks to cry it out. You didn’t even know if you had functional tear ducts but you desperately needed to cry it out. Even to just sit and wallow in silence under the thin sheet of metal you call a blanket. 

Your dented helm can wait, other mechs probably need medical attention more urgently than you anyway. 

You ignore the squawks and screeches of Starscream, being beaten most likely. He’d probably been blamed for the collapse of the mine and the loss of everything in it. It should have been you getting that beating instead. After all, you failed to warn them all, failed to get them out in time. It was your fault.

Once you’d made it back to the barracks you found you wouldn’t get the quiet wallowing you wanted, other vehicons sat huddled together consoling their wailing friends. Most vehicons in this particular barrack had been killed in the cave in, leaving it mostly empty. You didn’t want someone to console you right now, you didn’t even want to see them. They all reminded you of those who were crushed because of your own incompetence. 

You quietly wrapped yourself in the blanket and lay down, small and staticky sobs escaping your vocaliser as you cried it out. 

It turns out that no, you weren’t built with the ability to cry. All you could do is wail and shake until you grew too tired to stay awake anymore and hope that the bad memories left along with your dreams.

————————————————————————————————————

You woke up with a jolt. You’d had nightmares, ones where you’d been the one crushed instead. Your helm pounded, a sore reminder of the events of yesterday. 

You didn’t want to get up. Even if they Medical bay was most likely clear now you didn’t want to leave the comfort of your own berth. If you sat and hid in your blanket then perhaps the world outside would melt away into nothing. 

You helm started hurting worse now. Bright red warnings screaming at you to go do something about it filling your vision. Your internal clock told you you’d need to get up soon anyway. 

————————————————————————————————————

The walk to the medical bay was largely uneventful. Your fellow vehicons worked away silently, cleaning away the remains of energon others left behind them. Some dents littered a small patch of wall. You felt your hand over them when you were certain nobody was looking, they felt around the size Starcreams fists, he must have gotten angry over the cave in and his beating. Better the wall than your friends you suppose. 

You silently creeped into the medical bay, glancing around as you entered. Silently sitting down on the medical slab awaiting your repairs. 

Still thinking about those that had perished in the dark heavy and crushing tombs of rock, you barely registered what was going on around you. You could just barely hear Knockout berating you about looking so filthy. You guessed it was the mixture of dried up energon and bat droppings littering your frame that had set him off. Your repairs might take a while then, you doubt he’d touch you with a twenty foot stick. 

————————————————————————————————————

Once the repairs were done you left the med bay with a non dented helm and a frame clear of energon and organic residue. That saves a trip to the wash racks then. 

Time to head to your next job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel bad for poor lotus but still, he needs to suffer. Also there will probably be more gore and death in the coming chapters as I love writing and drawing gore and basically can’t stop myself from adding it in.


	3. The Lesson of Pain

It had been a tough week so far for you and your squad. After the cave in the officers were working you half to deactivation to make up for the losses made in the collapse. All the vehicons that survived it were given nonstop work to make up for their “incompetence”, the others were being punished for your own stupid decisions. 

You and your squadron were stuck hauling heavy crates full of freshly delivered supplies to the store rooms and the people who needed the supplies. This crate in particular felt like it weighed more than an entire shuttle, you felt like you might pull something trying to lift it for any longer. 

Thankfully, your squadron is there to help you as per usual. You want to refuse their help as they shouldn’t be needing to do this in the first place. You should have been the one hauling heavy crates, cleaning the engine room and repairing potentially hazardous machinery, after all it was you that failed to tell the others to get everything out before it was too late. 

Cole insists to help, he’s always been such a soft spark. Even after everything they’ve seen he still has an optimistic view of the world. Oh if only you could think like him again but your processor is probably scarred for the rest of your life by now with everything you’ve experienced.

You end up giving up on trying to stop him, once he’s set on something nothing can stop him. He’d probably crawl trough a pool of magma with one servo if it meant archiving his goals. 

The journey to the destination of the crate was a lot easier with his help but it was still pretty heavy, you nearly dropped it on your pedes at least twice on the way.

Once done you were immediately back to work, if anybody caught you slacking you’d be scrap metal. 

You be rotating duty’s soon enough, who knows what horrible job you will get this time?

The time passed painfully slow but eventually you were told to head to your next job. This next job was material collection, scrap. The name was deceiving but material collection was just the nicer word for destroying the deceased vehicons for parts and melting down what ever was left. 

Nobody liked this job, you had to be seriously wrong in the processor to actively enjoy or be ok with desecrating corpses like this. You all had to do it though, you’d be the one getting dismembered and dismantled if you refused to do it.

Entering the “materials sorting room” you can instantly smell the old energon from the lifeless husks that used to be your comrades. Metal shavings littered the floor and the colour of blue stains nearly every surface.

You can hear Rachel try purge next to you, a lack of faceplates stops you from doing it but you can blame her for trying. Cole is trying to be optimistic next to you saying that if we do it quick then we won’t have to be in here for so long. Your leader is diligently getting to work, his field showing no emotion, getting to work quickly and not complaining like the prefect vehicon should. Chloe and Ivan are shaking but you need to get on with it, waste anymore time and somebody will be coming down here to force you to work.

You stand over at a large metal slab, a corpse already waiting there. This one has multiple melted holes littering their frame, laser fire from a blaster no doubt. The melted metal on this one makes it useless to recycle for parts so you set to work hacking it into little enough pieces to go to the smelter. 

From across the room you can hear Cole trying to hum a cheerful room to distract you all, you can hear the static in it though. Chloe has started muttering to herself quietly, the others trying to get on with it as quick as they can.

You gently lift over another corpse and set it down, no visible marks on this one expert for a few self inflicted wounds it seems. The limbs and internals on this one can be reused. So again you set to work disassembling each part and putting the “spare parts” into a cart for use elsewhere, the useless bits are tossed into the growing pile of parts to be smelted down. 

Soon enough everything becomes a sort of blur as you get into a rhythm of dissection and cutting, vaguely registering the injury’s of each body as you go along.

Missing a helm, internal bleeding, caved in helm from a large fist, shot through the spark, internals pulled out, crushed, rust infection, covered in shrapnel with front half caved in, servos torn off, severely melted, another shot to the chest, broken jaw- wait a minute, this one has a grenade planted inside their internals! You shout at your squad to get out the room as quickly as possible, the grenade going of just as you barley get out of the blast radius. 

The room and all the corpses are nothing more than melted scrap metal now, frag. You were all going to get scrapped for this no doubt unless you could miraculously pull out some evidence of what happened. 

In a matter of seconds your whole squad is being called to the command deck, this is it, your slagged. 

————————————————————————————————————

Your squad leader does most of the talking for you all but when the decision is made that you are to be scrapped for your idiocy, you can’t help but speak up. You blather on about how none of this is your fault and the live grenade inside the corpse must have been one of those wrecker tricks you’d head about from the others.

You immediately regret every decision you’d made up until this point as you get screamed at for daring to speak back to a superior officer and questioning their decision making. 

Your life flashes before your optics as a fist comes flying straight towards you, hitting you square in the jaw. Collapsing to the floor you are instantly being rained with heavy hitting blows and try to cry out it pain only for warbling static to come out. Out the corner of your optics you can see your squad staring in fear, trying their best to act normal to avoid the same fate you will no doubt be meeting.

After what feels like an eternity it stops. Energon loss making everything seems fuzzy and distant. You can’t feel anything except pain, your limbs hanging limp and lifeless as your squad quickly drags you away to the medical bay. 

You sorely regret ever speaking up but at least your alive for now. Your sure you will never try pull a stunt like that ever again. Pain is the best teacher after all, Megatron says so himself.

Somewhere along the trip to the medical bay your consciousness fades away into nothingness.

————————————————————————————————————

You wake up slowly, feeling sore all over and extremely tired. You want to go back to sleep but before you return to your dreamless paradise you become aware of an extreme burning pain in your chest.

You try move your body only to realise you can’t, with a great deal of effort you manage to online your optics however. Looking down you can see Knockout busy fixing what looks like a large dent in your chest plating.

Then it all comes back to you, the explosion, the talking back and the beating. How lucky you must have been to have survived that with your cheap frame, even Starscream looks like he could offline at a blow of the wind after them. This will be one hell of a story to tell the others you suppose. Being able to flaunt the fact you survived one of Megatrons infamous beatings isn’t a very good thing though. 

As more of your frame comes online all you can feel is pain, of course it’s pain. Vehicons aren’t worth waisting painkillers on, you just have to sit there and suck it up. One of the best teachers is pain after all, that’s what everybody says. 

Soon enough though the exhaustion and pain cause you to pass out again.

————————————————————————————————————

Waking up back in your berth you wish it had all been a horribly realistic nightmare only for a sharp pain to surge up your leg as a fresh weld gets moved.

Suddenly your being swarmed by others. They are all gushing over how lucky you were to have survived, as if you didn’t know that yourself. Eventually someone steps in and shoos the crowd away, it’s your squad leader again. 

Cole wraps you into a tight hug whilst crying right into your audial. It’s nice to see them caring about you but right now you feel so sore and tired, all you want to do is sleep for an eternity.

Soon enough they leave you to rest with your leader informing your that you are required to be back on duty soon but that they will try take as much of your work as they can. 

Well you have another day of suffering ahead of you but that can wait for a bit, for now you sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for more suffering!


End file.
